Wayne Rooney: a patched-up survivor with an astonishing goals record

It is a tribute to Rooneys appetite and adaptability that he has surpassed Sir Bobby Charlton as Manchester Uniteds leading scorer. His goals and trophies make him the most influential English footballer of the last 25 years

It is one of the slightly lost details of Wayne Rooneys unveiling as a Manchester United player, but at the time Sir Alex Ferguson felt the need to defend blowing Uniteds entire transfer budget for the following year on a teenager. The fact is he is 18 and he could spend all his career at this club, Ferguson pointed out to the gathered media while his player, all gawky jug ears and clear, hard, unblinking teenage talent, held up a red shirt and smiled politely.

Four weeks later Rooney scored a hat-trick on his Champions League debut, leading the Manchester Evening News to note slightly saltily: To some pundits it appeared to be a huge gamble. But surely not any more.

No, surely not any more. Thirteen years on Rooney is Manchester Uniteds all-time top scorer, one of the great striking accolades in British football history passed with a superb free-kick to claim a point at Stoke. Rooney has taken 546 games to get there, 212 fewer than Bobby Charlton needed. In the process he has filled the roles of teenage wild card, younggunsRonaldo-wingman, senior pro, club captain, centre-forward, No10, right winger, inside-forward, central midfielder, prince of the good times and latterly last barnacled cling-on of a fading empire.

Ferguson was right too. A player who might have gone to Newcastle had they stumped up another 5m has spent the entire bloom of his peak years in Manchester red. Meanwhile that 27m fee looks like one of the best-value budget-blowing transfer deals ever made. Bear in mind the same summer Jonathan Woodgate went to Real Madrid for just over half as much, and the following year Chelsea would pay 21m of actual, real money for Shaun Wright-Phillips, scorer of four league goals across four seasons of meandering about on the wing.

For now, though, this is simply a moment to offer a little fond applause. Looming above the details are three points. First, this is a genuinely stark achievement, a record that in an era of ever-dulling superlatives really does deserve to be celebrated.

It has become a shared reflex to deride and belittle such achievements. No doubt there is a separate tract to be written on the peculiar syzygy of public reaction to its football stars: on one hand unconditional, heavily monetised fascination; on the other a shrieking rage at their perceived failings, in most cases at footballers who exist solely as moving blobs on a screen.

Third point, and related: Uniteds fans, the ones who go to the stadium or watch every game from afar, seem to have largely appreciated this. For all the howls off-stage, he is generally cheered at Old Trafford. As he should be. Tune out the noises off and Rooneys combination of trophies and goals makes him the most influential player in English football of the last quarter-century.

In similar vein that combination of goals and assists makes him a candidate, alongside Ian Rush, Thierry Henry and assorted venerable names from the yellowing football yearbooks, for the title of most influential attacking player at a single club in the history of English football.

It is necessary to grope around for comparables at this point. Charlton is the most obvious. His goals came in 758 games. He never benefited from playing as the teams central striker. But Rooney has also done more than his share of running and tracking and passing. It is in reality a largely meaningless comparison, one that yokes together distinct eras and distinct roles.

More meaningful comparisons could be made with Michael Owen, also a modern teenage prodigy. Owen scored 222 goals in 482 games, a fine record that tapered away with injuries. Similarly Robbie Fowler was arguably the most exciting Premier League tyro of them all, a pure goalscoring genius who scored 31, 36 and 31 goals in his first three full seasons, after which he played around the world until he was 37 but never got to 20 in a season again.

Injury, overwork, distracting riches, the relentless fury of English club football. There are violent forces at work on the teenage prodigy. Rooney is often portrayed as a compromised player, a what-might-have-been. In reality hes a survivor, a patched-up, bruised and scarred and hair-woven footballing machine, still just about cutting it, still making it up that hill, tyres almost bald, axle shuddering.

It hasnt all been sweetness. Two public wrangles for a new contract have left their scars with some United supporters. The current deal runs to 2019 and brings in a frankly ludicrous 300,000 a week, at a time when Rooney has begun to slow. He is by now an extremely high-mileage 31-year-old footballer. He looks it at times. Past the 200 mark, the goals have come at a notably decelerating rate.

There are still moments, signs of some unspent Rooney gold. But really Rooney faces an endgame now, a challenge to find a fitting note of closure.

The frenzied debate about his ultimate merits will no doubt continue. But the facts remain. Charltons record lasted 43 years. No doubt Rooneys will be broken too. But only by somebody equally worthy of breathing that clear, crisp air, matching an achievement that cuts through the white noise and speaks simply to that same pure and coltish teenage talent.